Questions about real name policy

[Ben Cooksley]

On Thu, Nov 2, 2023 at 7:55 AM Ben Bonacci <ben at benbonacci.com> wrote:

> Hi Josh,
>

Hi Ben,


>
> According to the mailing list archives from 2020 [1], "there is no real
> name policy on this mailing list (or any other KDE infrastructure.)"
> However, according to the community wiki page last updated in October
> 2022 [2], there is a git hook for authorship that states "A name is
> considered valid if it is a full name –  it should not be a username or
> the first name of the person."
>

Those two statements don't conflict at all with each other, so not sure
what the issue is here.

In that mailing list thread, "real name" should be interpreted as the
"legal name" that governments use when issuing identifying documents such
as a driver's license, passport, etc.

Full name (or as I have been using in this thread "proper name") simply
means a name that has a first name and a family name (or surname as it is
called in other places).
A pseudonym can certainly still be a full name, however it would not be a
real name.


>
> Perhaps a formal vote or the equivalent policy for handling these kinds
> of questions should be held. Then, whatever the final verdict would be,
> can be documented in the Code of Conduct or a similar document to make
> the policy clear.
>

That is not required, this area is relatively well settled.


>
> Regards,
>
> Ben
>

Regards,
Ben


>
>
> [1] https://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kdepim-users/2020-June/013299.html
>
> [2] https://community.kde.org/Infrastructure/Git/Hooks#Authorship_metadata
>
> On 1/11/23 12:40, Josh wrote:
> > Hello KDE community,
> >
> > I'm not sure if this is the best ML to post it in, but anyway - what is
> our
> > current stance on a real name policy? We were recently asked again in a
> Matrix
> > channel and the consensus seems to be "we don't know?" From what I can
> tell,
> > you *must* use your real name or else our git commit hooks will reject
> any
> > pushes. From some precursory web searches, people say to work around
> this by
> > putting spaces in the git username field. So it's allowed, but
> unofficially? The
> > git commit hook doesn't mention this work around I think.
> >
> > I have gotten more than zero complaints/questions about this policy, and
> I've
> > only been here for a year. When tracking down something "official", all
> I've
> > found is a few mentions on the Community wiki. If we dismissed the
> policy,
> > then we should update those commit hooks. These contributors are
> starting to
> > make non-trivial commits to projects I care about, so it would really
> great if
> > we can accommodate them.
> >
> > Whatever decision we make, can we document this somewhere so I can link
> people
> > to it? Preferably on kde.org, where it it's immutable and official
> looking like
> > our code of conduct.
> >
> > (If the reason is "it's because of relicensing", I have a hard time
> tracking
> > down people even when I know their full names. I would prefer better
> reasons
> > than that, if possible 😆)
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Josh
> >
> >
> --
> Ben Bonacci
> https://benbonacci.com
> C0A9 E67F 8CDC B1A1 0860 1807 E018 065C C7DF 3976
>
> Quote of the Day: "Dream big and dare to fail." - Norman Vaughan
>
>
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